Barn Owls in Nebraska

The North Platte River Valley in the Panhandle provides excellent barn owl habitat

State biologists report that barn owls are doing well overall in the state, with good populations in the southern panhandle where escarpments and cliffs provide numerous nesting sites, in the North Platte Valley, and in the southwestern and south central portions where many grasslands are still intact. The eastern half of the state supports fewer barn owls due to the intensive farming of soy and corn which provide very poor habitat. This is a fairly recent change—over the past ten years, a great deal of prairie has been turned into high intensity farming of these row crops.

Although researchers have not conducted in-depth studies of barn owl populations in the state, the frequency that wildlife rehabilitators take in injured and orphaned owls shows that the barn owl is doing well in Nebraska.